Preliminary report of a technique for stimulation or destruction of tissues beneath the integument and the establishing of conditioned reactions with faradization of the cerebral cortex.
A small collodion-coated coil is used just beneath the skin, for stimulation within the brain case, or elsewhere. This arrangement was designed as a means of stimulation by induced currents, to avoid connecting wires leading externally through the skin. The primary coil in this scheme can be applied near the embedded coil, during the actual trials and need not be carried about otherwise. Thus there is a reduction of impedimenta, and absence of metal leads entering the skin to alter healing, etc. Report is given of two trials aimed to establish conditioned reflexes; contrasting stimulation of the motor cortex with direct external stimulus of the contractile tissues. A brief description is also given of two further uses of the embedded coil, (a) destroying nervous tissue after the operative shock, etc., has subsided; and (b) to pick up action currents in nerve tissue, and transmit to loud speaker remote from the site of the trials.